Grisly tale of murder and rape

Grisly tale of murder and rape

A court this week heard shocking evidence of a crime of the most inhuman cruelty. Amanda Gearing reports

IT’S being described as the scene of Queensland’s most brutal crime.

In the modest brick unit in a suburban street in Toowoomba three teenagers cold-bloodedly slaughtered three companions and raped a 16-year-old mum feeding her baby.

At the unit on the evening of May 30, 2005, something went terribly wrong.

A defence barrister working on the case said there was no precedent in Queensland case law for the level of violence that unfolded.

Two of the offenders were children. The other — Scott Geoffrey Maygar — was almost 19.

At least two, including Maygar, had been in the care of the Child Safety Department.

Maygar pleaded guilty on day two of his trial this week to murdering David Lyons, 17 and Michael Thompson, 30 and the manslaughter of Tyson Wilson, 17.

He also pleaded guilty to four counts of rape.

A child, who cannot be named, has pleaded guilty to three counts of murder and two of rape.

The third offender, also a child, has pleaded guilty to one count of murder. All three will be sentenced on Friday in Toowoomba Supreme Court.

One of the victims, Michael Thompson, was central to the gruesome events. The Hume St unit was Thompson’s home. He was known to local street kids but was not a youth worker.

Thompson had unwittingly invited two teenagers to stay a few days before they murdered him and two of his house guests.

In the months and weeks before the murders, Thompson’s girlfriend, Alexandra Keilty-Barrett, moved into the unit, as did Tyson Wilson, from Crows Nest, who had found a job in Toowoomba.

Two other teenage boys, including one of the offenders, also moved in.

A 16-year-old mother and her baby of 21 months moved in on the day of the murders.

The unit was a busy hub with other teenagers coming and going.

The court was told at least nine other teenagers visited the unit during the day and six left earlier in the evening. They walked around town until about midnight, unaware of the carnage unfolding

at the unit.

Maygar and a Rockhampton youth, now aged 17 who cannot be named, attacked their first victim, Wilson, while he was in a drunken sleep.

Wilson apparently had reneged on an agreement to drive them to Maryborough the next day to get some guns.

They broke his skull in a vicious attack with a billiard ball in a sock and also used a chain and a padlock.

Mark Noffke, 18, arrived at the unit about 10pm, when the attack on Wilson began. He got in his van to leave but was taken hostage and was spared his life only because the killers wanted to use his van to dump the first body.

Once Wilson was dead, Maygar and the youth entered the unit carrying metal bars and told everyone to sit down and said to them they had killed someone and told them to hand over their mobile phones.

They took out the SIM cards and smashed the phones on the floor.

Lyons, who was sitting on the couch, asked Maygar if he could lick blood off the bar, which Maygar allowed but when Lyons asked a second time, Maygar hit Lyons over the head with the bar. Lyons then asked the two if he could go to his girlfriend to calm her down.

He was then bashed to death on the couch on which he was sitting with so much force one of the metal bars bent.

Maygar then went to a bedroom where Lyons’s girlfriend was caring for her baby.

He threatened her and the baby with a knife before he and the other Rockhampton youth raped her repeatedly in the laundry of the unit.

After the rapes, the two killers picked up the bars again and asked who would be next.

The Rockhampton youth played a song by Australian pub rockers The Choirboys, Run to Paradise, and told those in the room to remember the song because it would the last they heard.

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From P24

Thompson tried to bargain with the killers about how he would die.

“If you are going to kill me can you cut my achilles tendon and talk to me while I bleed to death in the shower? Don’t kill me with the pole,” he begged.

Noffke said an attempt was made to cut Thompson’s achilles tendon, but it didn’t bleed. Thompson then asked: “What’s the next quickest way?” and was told “to break your neck”.

Maygar twisted Thompson’s head and when that didn’t work he twisted it back the other way, Noffke told the court.

One of the younger teens tried and failed, and the pair struck Thompson with the metal poles, fracturing his jaw and skull.

Mr Byrne told the court that Maygar and the youth forced the bar into Thompson’s mouth, pushing it out the back of his neck and breaking

his spine.

About midnight the murderous rampage came to an end when three teenage girls knocked on the door of the unit.

Maygar’s girlfriend persuaded Maygar to leave the unit before he killed anyone else. He and the Rockhampton youth left Toowoomba in the van with two girls and Noffke as hostages. The third killer stayed in Toowoomba.

The survivors ran for help and the police were alerted.

Police captured the fugitives that night near Ipswich.

The hostages were released without serious injury and the three young men were arrested.